A former drug dealer from Pinchbeck who transformed his life with help from a young people’s charity has been spared an immediate jail sentence.

Shaun Taylor (22), of Viscount Close, Pinchbeck, was praised by a judge at Lincoln Crown Court yesterday before he was given an eight-month jail sentence, suspended for 12 months.

I cannot remember ever reading such a collection of glowing testimonies to somebody who has changed his life completely around

Judge Michael Heath, Lincoln Crown Court

Taylor had admitted charges of supplying the addictive drug knwon as MCAT and possessing the drug with intent to supply on November 23 2014 after he was arrested in Spalding by police who stopped a car he was a passenger in.

Jonathon Dee, prosecuting, said the car was then searched and 11 grammes of MCAT were recovered.

Mr Dee said “Taylor was frank with officers, he accepted that he was dealing in MCAT and also accepted he had been doing it for some time.”

Taylor is now free of drugs, in work and was shortlisted for a national award for the way he has turned around his life.

Sunil Khanna, for Taylor, said “He is a young man who at the time had an entrenched drug addiction and it was his arrest that led to the realisation that he had to do something to stop his life deteriorating.”

Sentencing Taylor, Judge Michael Heath said: “The way you’ve changed your life since your arrest for these matters is nothing short of remarkable.”